Page 58 of Cattle Stop

“There you go, what’s wrong with you?”

You, Cooper could answer. Sorry, sits on his tongue. For taking Whit’s extra pay here, for coming in and turning both of their lives upside down. For saying yes to the insistence of Whit’s hands and mouth, when one of them should’ve been thinking straight.

“I can’t believe you’re going to set up milking and then go work at a bar the same day you end up in the hospital,” Cooper says instead. “All with stitches in your damn hand. Though maybe you’re just staying on brand, mister brainiac over here.”

“Glad to hear you think I’m so smart.”

“Well, we’ll see if you can figure out whether you can get over that cattle stop, or if you’re more on Buttercup’s intelligence level.”

“Are you coming by tonight?” Whit asks, the words quick and his voice quiet.

“What, to Murry’s?” Of course Murry’s. What else could Whit mean than stopping by the bar? Cooper works his finger into the hole at the bottom of his pocket. “Maybe, just for the fun of messing with you. Order some complicated-as-hell drink and put you to the test.”

“You only drink beer.”

“With a perfect quarter inch of foam, thank you.”

Fencing, setting up those water lines, hell, just dealing with moving the pigs could take all day, and evening too, if Cooper let it. He could. The work would be enough to lose himself in, and Whit wouldn’t question it. It’s summer. It’s what they’re all used to, burning the candle at both ends, not carving out evenings to relax with each other. With Whit.

“Yeah, sure, I could swing by,” Cooper says.

Get yourself together, he tells himself as Whit heads off toward the barn. Cooper leans against the fence post, arms folded. He shakes himself when he realizes he’s just been staring at the far stone wall across the field, lichen-covered and so old the stones are weathered and dull against the brightness of the grass.

Later, Cooper stands in front of his gaping duffle bag. It’s Whit, he tells himself and pulls on a T-shirt, like he even has anything nicer stashed in there. Cooper’s been through this, and he isn’t going to walk backward into his teenage self and become a blushing, tongue-tied mess.

Whit just wants some company tonight. That’s the only reason he asked if Cooper’d be coming by. And Drew’s in Albany picking up more rennet, and Penny’s at Murry’s too, so what the hell else is Cooper going to do? Hang out with the squirrels? Cooper meeting Whit isn’t a thing. He’s just going to the bar, their bar, their very normal bar that all of them always go to.

There’s a spot of engine grease on Cooper’s T-shirt that long since stained the hem a darker blue. He rubs his thumb over it like it’ll budge now, when dozens of washings haven’t cleaned the grease from the fabric. Cooper’s stomach jumps and he frowns. Hungry, he figures, as if he didn’t just wolf down a sandwich.

It’s a slow evening at Murry’s, and Cooper gets his favorite parking spot, though not his favorite barstool. Where he and Drew normally sit, a man and a woman are perched, their fingers entwined and knees knocking together.

Sure enough, there’s Whit behind the bar, wiping a pint glass. He fills it as Cooper walks over, one hand on the tap, veins running down the smooth skin on the inside of his forearm. Whit’s pouring brown ale, Cooper’s long-standing favorite. Cooper slides onto a stool and takes the glass.

“Did you finish reinventing farming?” Whit bends down to grab the rack of dishes from the dishwasher, his shirt tight enough across his back that Cooper can see the ridges and dips of muscle in his shoulders.

“I gave up when the rooster protested.” Cooper holds up his hand. Whit barely glances at the mark there. “C’mon, feel bad for me, I’m injured.”

“Get a handful of stitches, and I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, you barely have a scratch, Mr. I’m-fine-let-me-just-keep-working-all-day.” Cooper spins his stool to the side and back again, his forearms on the bar. It’s weird to watch Whit put away cocktail glasses, one hand covered in a latex glove over the bulk of the bandage. “Besides, after I’m done with my grand plan, the farm’s going to be so laden with Drew’s cheese that it’ll be pizza night every night, and all my dreams will have come true.”

“Good to know you have such lofty goals.”

“Saving my favorite farm and eating my weight in cheese, all in a day’s work.” Cooper lifts his glass toward Whit. Absolutely perfect, really, that image he holds of Drew’s farm. His favorite by far, of all the different farms he’s ever seen, with its barn and fields and cows, and the house vibrantly full of Whit, Drew, and Penny, and Sadie tottering after them on her old, arthritic legs.

Something sharp pangs through his chest at the thought. Happy, he wants to think, but the image he has of them is more like watching through a window, caught outside of that cheerful tableau.

A hand touches Cooper’s shoulder and he turns. “Yeah?”

The woman on Drew’s favorite stool asks, “You make cheese?”

“Uh, no?”

“Oh.” Her head tips, straight brown hair falling over her forehead. “Sorry, I must’ve misheard.”

“The farm I work at makes cheese,” he says slowly.

She raises a finger. “Knew it. Brad? He was talking about ordering from you.”